Coffee Grinds
by KrisTerms
Summary: AU. Harry dies defeating Voldemort in an AU world where he never experienced love but always fought against Dark Lord Voldemort. He is given an opportunity to go live life where he isn't burdened with the responsibility of defeating a Dark Lord, challenging himself to allow love into his life. Rating may change.


**Coffee Grinds**

**Chapter One **

_(Prelude/Introduction)_

* * *

"You are not supposed to be here, Harry."

Harry looked around. He didn't see anyone. He was dead, he was sure. He was twenty-eight, had spent seventeen years training in the magical world to finally rid the crumbling world of Voldemort. He had seen complete and utter madness, watched war occur that millions of muggles considered to be the apocalypse. Magicals were almost completely wiped out. Muggles were almost completely wiped out. There were very few good people left, be it because they were killed or because what they saw made them lose faith in everything. He had nearly given up hope if it hadn't been for the fact that there was nothing left for him to do but defeat the monster who destroyed the world.

It was a suicide mission, ending Voldemort; It was a suicide mission and he happily accepted it.

"Then where am I supposed to be?"

A figure slowly appeared in front of him, sitting in a comfortable looking chair. Harry found a chair behind him and sat. He tried to read how he felt and it came to him… he felt peaceful. He remembered the feeling vaguely, experiencing it the few times he was able to find the time and the right person to couple with for an evening. It was nice.

The figure smirked. They had long hair and were of indistinguishable gender. Perhaps they didn't have a gender. "Harry, tell me… what went wrong in your lifetime?"

Harry blinked once. He blinked twice. His mouth opened, shut, then he blinked one more time before a snort escaped him, followed by a chuckle. The chuckle quickly became a full-blown laughter, the kind that made his whole body ache from laughing so intensely.

"Where should I start?" he finally managed. "Everything was wrong. Anything that could go wrong, did. The wrong people died, good men were used and killed needlessly, no one could be trusted. There was no happiness." He shook his head. "Not even the good guys could be trusted."

The figured nodded. "This is all too true. Everyone that you should have been able to rely on either betrayed you, used you for their own means, or died. Much of this was unexpected. I do believe, however, you learned a bit more about magic, life, and death than you were supposed to, though you learned nearly nothing of love. We were amazed that you were able to stick to the prophecy and conquer Tom Riddle. It would have been much easier for you to simply become a second Voldemort." The figure peered closely at Harry, looking him over. Harry sat and waited, patience being a value he picked up early in his life and perfected by the time he died.

"What we want to know, Harry, is why."

There was no easy answer to this question. Harry wasn't sure he would be able to find a good enough answer, but he tried nonetheless. After thinking about everything, about the horrors and disappointments of his life, after everything he had learned and experienced, everyone he had met who had given up the good fight and everyone he had met who decided at the last moment to be good, he couldn't put his finger on a good enough answer.

He shook his head. "I'm not quite sure, to be honest." He looked at the figure. They had grey eyes, lacking any color at all. "There were moments when I thought about giving up. There were times when I did the wrong thing. When I was twenty I nearly lost myself to the madness of the Dark Arts before realizing I was traveling too deep and losing myself in something too endless. Maybe that's it. I never lost myself.

"Do you know how each person is different? How everyone has something, even identical twins; Each and every person has something that makes them undeniably different to everyone else around them. I think, perhaps, I never lost the part of me that was different. I still made time to learn silly things once in a while, still tried to maintain the thirsty parts that made me a unique combination. People who get involved in things like the Dark Arts, people who lose themselves to an obsession, that never happened to me. And these were extreme times, it was hard to not find one thing and give yourself completely to it, an idea or a belief that made you completely alike those around you. I just liked individuality. From an early age I liked it. May I tell you a story?"

The figure across was watching him with much interest. He nodded and Harry got the impression he was impressing them, whoever they were. "Alright. I'm not sure how much you know about me, if you know everything or not. When I was younger, however, I was quite different from everyone around me. In school we always heard that differences were what make everyone unique, that the things that made you unique were what made you who you were. My family did not appreciate this. My aunt, uncle, cousin… they were all rather put out on just how different I was from them. It is understandable, I had something they didn't and they were people who always seemed to want what it was they couldn't have. Regardless, however, I was picked on and bullied, even beaten rather harshly because I wasn't 'normal'. I wasn't like everyone else.

"And that all seemed rather queer at the time. No one was normal if everyone was different, right? There couldn't be a normal. I think I just accepted that some people would never realize they were different from everyone else, that some people believed they were the people they associated with and not a person on their own. It all just enforced my individuality, though. I didn't have many friends, ever. I never had a girlfriend or boyfriend, never fell in love or was interested in the idea after my best friend died and his family was burned for associating with me. I was always different, and for a moment I wasn't alone but being alone was something I was good at, something I was used to. I could handle that much better than having betrayal thrust upon me." Harry shook his head. "Nevermind that. What I'm trying to say is, I accepted myself early on. I was me, there was no one else who was me. And I was tested, I nearly failed but I didn't. And I never gave up on myself completely. I always just believed that the things that made me who I am, trying to stop bullies like my cousin from picking on kids who were different or hurting people not exactly like them, it just kept me going. I didn't like what was happening, so I did something about it. Anything I was interested in, I pursued. People tried to change me, and some people did change me to an extent, but no one ever changed who I was and I'm not sure anyone ever could. So after I spent a year obsessing over the Dark Arts, I found myself completely unaware of anything good. There was no "little things" left in my life. I was no longer doing the things I enjoyed, I didn't even notice the color of the coffee grinds when I finished making my morning coffee. It was my favorite color since I was a boy, and I hadn't really noticed it in a year. I could have lost myself, but I didn't. I think that's why I never gave up. If I hadn't burned my coffee that morning I might have never noticed the color of the grinds again."

They looked at each other for a good while, then the figure smiled. "You, Harry, are a potent soul. And a good one at that."

Harry blinked. It was the most interesting compliment he had ever received. "Thank you."

The figure nodded. "What I would like to do is offer you a second chance. You see, there are different worlds all patterned with the same souls initially, but because of the choices that are made in everyone's lifetime, each world differs, sometimes to the extreme and other times just barely distinguishable. You did things on your own in the last world, you knew of trust but didn't experience it thoroughly. You cannot recall ever experiencing love. Being thrown into environments in which we are unaccustomed, it is a challenge. What we would like to do is throw you into a world where you still have your parents, where things have happened in the first war but there is no prophecy dedicated to linking you and Tom Riddle together. You are untethered by him, but are still effected by him simply because the Tom Riddle in this world is the same as the Tom Riddle in yours, but you are free of the responsibility of killing him. He didn't kill your family on Halloween, Neville Longbottom was instead given the scar of the killing curse and a piece of Voldemort's soul."

Harry stared at the figure. He would be lying if he never wondered what such a world would be like. He had given up on the dream of ever having a family early on and devoted himself to other things instead. A world where he didn't have to defeat Voldemort? He couldn't even think of what a night in that world would be like. Would he never have nightmares? Would he never have the peppered grey hair he experienced by the time he was fifteen? Would he even be able to trust or love anyone? "What would happen if I didn't accept this offer?"

The figure tilted their head. "Then you would proceed forward into the afterlife. There are people there who loved you, but you never loved them. Who you are now is who you will forever be. You will never experience fatherhood, you will never fall in love, you will never have a more connections than what you had in this life."

Harry thought it over long and hard. He had a chance to expand his life, to continue growing. He went through hell in his life. There were times few and far between where he felt joy, where he experienced good. While an afterlife would be peaceful, he wasn't so sure it would be fun. Or exciting. And he had accepted early on how good adrenaline felt.

He looked back at the figure. "Okay." He felt his heart beat once and realized it hadn't been beating while he was there with the figure. "I'll do it."


End file.
